Ever Wonder Who Puts all the Flashing Lights on Cop Cars?

"Your nasty drunks, I mean, usually they've been in a fight, so you got blood all over," observes Don Knechtel, who was a cop in Lansing, Michigan, for 18 years. "And then they tend to get queasy stomachs on the ride to jail, so you got your basic upchuck to deal with. Plus, they sometimes have a bladder-control situation I don't even want to talk about. All of this, naturally, it's like the first hour of your shift, an all-day stink. That's why I recommend biohazard seats."

The hyperkinetic Knechtel dashes to a shelf to grab a flimsy-looking black plastic bench, which he hoists in the air. "See? Just yank out your cruiser's upholstered rear seat and bolt this baby in. They're a little pricey" - $375 for a Crown Victoria, $680 for the average SUV - "but they're shaped so a guy in cuffs has a place to stuff his hands" - Knechtel crosses his wrists behind his back as if he's in custody - "and best of all, you can hose 'em out." He grins, then searches for a nearby garden hose.

Most of this gear is expensive. The average roof-mounted light bar, for instance, costs $1000 to $1800 and needs to be serviced every six months. An in-car camera/VCR - the kind you see on Cops - costs $4200, "though it's worth it," insists Knechtel, "if only to have an audio record of domestic disputes, where somebody always claims the officer was rude." And a laptop computer - the kind that runs plate numbers and reveals priors - can cost anywhere from $8000 to $10,000, though it, too, "saves a ton of time for road troops," as Knechtel calls them, "who can then file all their reports electronically."

Alert deals mostly with Crown Vics, of course. In fact, Ford owns 80 to 85 percent of the police-car business, flogging some 60,000 cruisers annually. But an increasing number of Chevy Impalas are showing up, as are SUVs - mostly Tahoes, Grand Cherokees, Expeditions, and Explorers. In the latter, Knechtel frequently installs K-9 kennels that are automatically ventilated whether the truck is running or not. There's even a hand-held remote that allows a cop to release a dog from afar. "When you get to wrestlin' with an actor," he explains, "it's nice to have an angry canine show up. Takes the fight right outta your average bad guy."

Alert also modifies a bevy of ATVs - some for the "railroad police," others for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, which also operates a fleet of snowmobiles. Alert even assembled a hulking SWAT "bread van" for deployment at Detroit Metro Airport, a vehicle that carries a 700-pound gun vault "big enough for three bodies," recalls one of its installers. "Don't know what crime they're expectin' out there, but you don't wanna be at the airport whenever it goes down."

Knechtel's cop-car addiction is no recent affliction. "Back in the '70s," he recalls, "I was an officer in Oakland County, and that was Pontiac country, of course, so they had me drivin' a huge Bonneville. When I got to Lansing, well, that was Oldsmobile country, so they put me in a monster Delta 88. A little later, they downsized us to rear-drive Cutlasses, and GM thought it'd be cool if we helped test its diesels. Well, 70 percent of those cars were out of commission at any given moment. We had diesel engines stacked up like cordwood, and the cruisers that weren't broken couldn't catch anybody. I remember a guy I chased for 18 miles. When I finally stopped him, I said, 'Hey, pal, didn't you see me back there, all my lights flashing?' He said, 'Aren't you supposed to turn on the lights when you're in the vicinity of my bumper?' All I could tell him was, 'I tried, man, I tried.'"